SEASIDE HEIGHTS — Among the possessions and homes destroyed by the flood waters of superstorm Sandy, some of the most treasured items lost were irreplaceable photographs of loved ones.

A group of volunteers from across the nation visited Seaside Heights this weekend in hopes of salvaging a bit of the soggy, moldy photos gathered by Sandy survivors. There, members of Operation Photo Rescue scanned the damaged photos and began the painstaking task of digitally restoring the images that could be saved. Watch the video above to see how the photos are restored.

When 60-year-old Rick Carpini found his damaged family photographs inside his lagoon-front Toms River home in the days following the storm, he was devastated.

“That’s when it hits you. That’s when you cry,” he said.

It was the pictures, not the possessions destroyed, that Carpini found most distressing. With his relatives deceased, Carpini picked some of his most precious photographs and carried them Sunday to Home Depot on Sumner Avenue, where Operation Photo Rescue volunteers worked away with scanners and computers.

“We come to disaster areas about six months after the disaster,” said Mike Sluder of Operation Photo Rescue, which has about 2,800 volunteers across the planet.

The team in Seaside Heights scanned the photographs and uploaded the images to the Web, where volunteers selected photos to restore based on their skill level.

Volunteers have to pass tests to participate, and photos go through a quality control process, said Sluder, who lives in Canton, Mich. Once complete, the photos are printed and mailed back to their owners.

About 9,000 photographs have been restored so far this year, he said.

“The photos are very precious to people,” Sluder said. “I’ve always worked with computers and Photoshop (software), and now I get to do it and help others.”

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After a massive tornado destroyed the town of Joplin, Mo., in 2011, Sluder said he restored the wedding photograph of a man who died in the tragedy, but managed to cover his wife, and thus save her life. Similarly, people have come to the Seaside Heights center in hopes of salvaging photographs of beloved, deceased relatives.

A retired opera singer, Diane Daniels, 55, lost the music, photographs and newspaper reviews that documented her career when the superstorm flooded the lower level of her Lavallette home. Daniels brought a small collection of photos, with a few that captured some of the last images of a deceased friend, to the organization Sunday.

“If they can restore them, that would be nice,” she said.

Photos with minor damage can take an hour to restore, while others can take as long as a month, said David Ehnebuske, an Operation Photo Rescue volunteer from Holmes, N.Y.

Shujen Chen, a volunteer from the Chicago area, said some of the most moving photos he has restored include baby, wedding and funeral photos.

“Restoring something to its original shape is always a very joyful thing to do, especially when you do it and bring joy to other people at the same time,” said Chen. “This is something that’s irreplaceable, something you cannot buy with money — the image of your past, of your family.”